Ten Reasons Why Scanning Your Old Photographs is Important

 

Many of us have one or more boxes of old photographs, slides and negatives sitting around in various storage locations. In addition, there are probably many old photo albums sitting in closets, attics, basements, or storage lockers.

 Now that we have completely entered the digital age, these traces of an earlier time are sort of like modern artifacts. We all know they are there, but we don't really see them anymore. The answer, obviously, is to have these photographic treasures of our past scanned into digital files – basically, to bring them into the Digital Now.

Well, that's what we should do. But, the most of us just keep putting it off. Often, we just haven't thought through all the reasons why getting all that material scanned is important – but it is! Here's why:

1. All photographic materials will deteriorate with time. The rate of decay is different for various materials, but it is happening to all of your photographic memories just the same.
2. Old slides and negatives will tend to color-shift over time. This happens as the polymers in the film base gradually change with age. The dyes used to form the image can also fade – this is most noticeable in the case of color photographs.
3. Once you digitize your pictures, that deterioration is halted. Perhaps more importantly, once they are digitized those images can, in many cases, be brought back to their original beauty and detail with relative ease, if the image changes have not been too great. Also, there are now digital storage discs that are expected to last for over 100 years
4. If you were one of the many 35mm slide photographers, to view your slides, you have to find your old projector (if it still works - tried to find a projector bulb recently?), or a slide viewer, in order to view them.
5. If you have a bunch of old negatives, you really don't have a way to view them at all – unless you have some rare ability to invert colors on your own.
6. Unfortunately, the manufacturers of old photo albums neglected to provide USB ports (it probably has to do with the fact that USB technology did not exist). Unfortunately, that means there is no simple method to upload them to your computer. If you use a  scanning service, however, they can scan not only the full album pages (to preserve the “character” of the album), but they can also scan some or all of the individual pictures they contain as well, if desired.
7. Your past is important – not only to you, but to your children and grandchildren (if any) and other members of your family. Your old photographs represent the best record of that past. When you digitize them, you can then share them with all of your friends and loved ones.
8. Once they are available as digital files, your collection of old photographs can be shared socially. They can be posted to your Facebook pages, you can upload them to Pinterest, and you can share them on all your favorite social media sites.
9. Once you upload your scanned photos onto your computer, it turns it into a time machine. Now, all those valued (and, in some cases – forgotten) moments of your past can be enjoyed at a moment's notice.

10. When they are available in digital form, those wonderful mementos can be restored and repaired as much as needed. So, even if your photographic memories have lost some of their detail, the photographs of earlier times can be viewed as though it all happened yesterday.

There is one last reason for digitizing this important part of your heritage - it is a way of insuring these treasures against the possibility of sudden, catastrophic loss.  The News these days seems to be a non-stop chain of reports of very damaging weather that results in floods, and wind damage.

Many families have seen all their belongings damaged or lost completely.  While their photos are not as immediately critical as many other possessions, their loss will still be deeply felt. Fires are another way in which this kind of catastrophic loss can occur.  Whatever the source of these tragic losses, they can all be avoided if those precious photos have previously been digitized and uploaded to the Cloud, and/or stored on discs in multiple locations.

Don't keep delaying the project of rescuing your photographic past. While it may seem like a big job, once you get started with it you will find that it is not only a lot of fun, but highly rewarding as well. If you have a large amount of material to be scanned, a good scanning service will offer a Monthly Program option, so that you can send your slides, photographs, and/or negatives in batches on a regular basis. This will allow you to spread out the cost, as well as reducing the time involved to get each batch organized for scanning. One other important feature of a good scanning service is their ability to provide you with both photograph restoration and photo editing services. That way, all your needs can be met by one Scanning Service Provider.